Bitcoin remained near $80,400 on Monday after briefly dipping to approximately $79,300 during Asian trading. The cryptocurrency was little changed from midnight UTC, while altcoins posted mixed results. CoinDesk’s DeFi index (DFX) was the only index to advance as traders prepared for the Federal Reserve’s policy announcement on Wednesday.

Ether (ETH) declined 0.2%, while broader market sentiment remained cautious following Arthur Hayes’ weekend decision to close all directional positions in his Maelstrom fund. Hayes attributed the move to macroeconomic and geopolitical uncertainty. The liquidation included 6,400 ETH.

Traditional markets showed modest signs of recovery. S&P 500 futures gained around 0.3% after U.S. equities fell on Friday. Oil prices also retreated, with U.S. crude losing approximately 2% to trade near $101 per barrel and Brent falling to around $110. The declines came after Qatari mediators arrived in Tehran on Sunday and President Donald Trump said there would be no strike that day, while leaving the possibility of future military action unresolved.

Investors are now focused on Wednesday’s Federal Reserve decision. After raising interest rates in September, the central bank is expected to leave borrowing costs unchanged, according to CME FedWatch data, which showed a 90% probability of a pause. Markets also priced in roughly an 80% chance of another rate increase in December.

Spot Bitcoin ETF flows remain under pressure. The funds recorded $138 million in net outflows on Friday, pushing combined withdrawals over two sessions to $772 million, according to Farside Investors.

Derivatives positioning

Crypto futures activity slowed as liquidations eased. Total open interest increased 0.85% over 24 hours to $139.9 billion, although trading volume slipped 1.78%. Liquidations dropped 71% to $153 million. The taker long-to-short volume ratio was nearly balanced at 50.34% versus 49.66%.

Bitcoin and Ether saw only modest positioning changes. Bitcoin gained 0.20%, accompanied by a 0.84% increase in open interest, while trading volume declined 7.21%. Ether’s price rose 0.23%, and its open interest increased 0.45%, indicating limited changes in market exposure.

Funding rates point to restrained leverage. Funding across major cryptocurrencies remained slightly positive, with a broadly green 24-hour heatmap. USDE and TRX recorded some of the lowest readings. The data suggests traders were not paying unusually high costs to maintain leveraged long positions.

ZEC gained alongside rising open interest. Open interest increased 8.17% as the token climbed 3.84%, while trading volume expanded 19.11%. Its funding rate stood at a relatively modest 0.0063%, suggesting the new positions were not particularly costly to maintain.

ENA’s rally attracted fresh trading activity. Ethena’s open interest rose 16.85% over 24 hours as its price advanced 8.36%. Volume jumped 81.51%. However, open interest fell 2.04% in the latest hour, indicating that some traders had begun closing positions after the rally.

Crude oil remained the only top-20 market with negative funding. Oil perpetual futures registered a funding rate of -0.0077%. The price declined 1.55%, while open interest fell 7.37%, pointing to traders reducing exposure during the downturn. Volume surged 190.88%, and the remaining positions showed a short bias.

Order-flow data showed mixed buying and selling pressure. Open-interest-adjusted cumulative volume delta (CVD) was positive for XMR, ZEC, GRAM, CC and SOL, indicating that market-order buying exceeded selling. DOGE, LINK, HYPE and XLM had negative readings.

Bitcoin options traders continued to favor puts. The Oct. 28 $77,000 put was the most active contract, followed by the Oct. 28 $84,000 call. Bitcoin’s one-month skew narrowed to about 12.5% from 14.5%, meaning puts remained more expensive than calls, but the difference had decreased.

Ether options also showed a preference for downside protection. Four of the six most active contracts were puts, led by the Oct. 29 $2,000 put. The one-week skew declined to approximately 8.7% from 13.3%, although puts continued to carry a higher premium than calls.

Token talk

Uniswap (UNI) gained 1.9%, while Ethena (ENA) rose around 1%, despite Maelstrom selling 323,000 UNI and 14 million ENA over the weekend. The fund is associated with Arthur Hayes.

AI-related tokens generally lagged the broader market. Grass (GRASS), a network that supplies data for AI training, fell 2.7%, while Near Protocol (NEAR) lost 1.4%. The declines coincided with Elon Musk’s Sunday warning that lenders had stopped extending credit to roughly 200 cloud providers focused exclusively on AI.

Hyperliquid (HYPE) advanced about 1% as traders evaluated a decision by Nasdaq-listed Hyperliquid Strategies (PURR) to increase its stock buyback program to $100 million, more than tripling the previous amount. Announced Friday, the repurchase plan covers PURR shares only and does not involve HYPE tokens.

Meanwhile, CoinMarketCap’s Altcoin Season Index declined to 53 out of 100 from 58 on Friday, reflecting a modest deterioration in altcoin performance relative to Bitcoin.